


Tales Untold

by cortchuzska



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cortchuzska/pseuds/cortchuzska





	1. Chapter 1

“That's not the proper way a Lord acquits himself.”

Sandor squared his shoulders. Since she had assumed her title, his lady wife had grown even stricter on the issue of lordlike behaviour, and stressed the importance of setting a good example. Thence, he tried his best to keep his tongue in check, seldom indulged in wine, and wished a couple of words with the smartass who had first quipped 'drunk like a Lord ', 'swear like a Lord' and the likes.

“Tarth, if you wanted manners, you had at your beck and call a host of smooth talking lordlings grovelling for your hand. Now, a man can't even call at the Crescent Moon's...”

“I wouldn't mind at all, as long as you don't pick up a fight just because you mislike a drunken song.”

“It's you who swoons over love ballads. I like bawdy songs as the next man. I take issue when people make you uncomfortable and poke fun at you.”

“He wasn't, at least not any longer: as soon as you growled at him he let go of his harp, and when the innkeep hurried in and saluted me as the Lady of Tarth, his tune changed quickly enough.” Brienne scolded him. “Then, you asked politely if he would rather have his teeth smashed off or his fingers broken, and you would hear how well he could play that song... You can't go about and threaten everyone who says I look – well, the way I look.”

“A big ugly cow, in his very words.” Sandor shrugged it off. “Words are winds, and you should stop squirming like a mouse and caring for what people say. I am a big ugly man; a big ugly cow of a woman suits me just fine - but fuck me with a hot poker if I let a little shit with a honeyed tongue lust after my wife, I don't give a damn he is bloody right!” He snarled as the oaken table screeched under his fist.

Brienne's mulish and uncomprehending stare took off the edge of his outburst.

“I rake my mind for days, the best I come up with is your eyes are blue, big and beautiful, a moron passes by, and on the spot the cunt sputters out _Deeper and more Sapphireus than Tarth sea, glimmering with enchantment...”_

“We should first ask the maester if that's is even a word, which I doubt. Sapphirine waters is what I always heard.”

Brienne sighed. Catelyn was only four, but her suitors were going to have a very hard time.

Stubborn raps broke the solar sudden quiet. The knocking had been likely going on for a while, without them noticing.

“Who would it be, this late?” Brienne wondered briefly, then her duty-first attitude took over, and her ladyship ordered curtly. “Do come in.”

“My Lady,” The Septa opened the door holding the hand of their daughter, already in her nightshift. It was well past her bedtime hour. “I am sorry to interrupt, but Catelyn won't go to sleep, without a tale from Lord Sandor.”

“You missed my bedtime story.” She protested with a frown.

“Catelyn, scowls don't befit little ladies.”

Sandor wouldn't fault his daughter for that – he actually found Brienne's ones quite appealing and was a scowler himself, so he just opened her his arms. “Here, pup. It won't happen again, I promise. Florian and Jonquil is the one you like best, isn't it?”

Brienne furrowed her brow: Sandor didn't share her love for discipline, but she would not let it pass.

“You already told her yesterday. Catelyn is spoiled enough as it is, and stuffing her head with silly, dreamy tales like you keep doing won't do.”

Their daughter had the largest and bluest eyes ever, matched with with Sandor's dark long hair, and a fair skin of her own - not ridiculously pale nor freckled: no doubt she would grow into a beauty, albeit an exceedingly tall one: the notches on the doorpost were a wee higher than those Brienne had scored at her same age. To her parents, she was already beautiful and the mirror would keep telling her so: Brienne feared Catelyn would believe all too easily the lies of men, without the help of a down to earth looking glass to rescue her from starry-eyed dreams.

Sandor bounced the child on his knee. “Your mother is right as always. You are a big girl now, big enough for a true story. Do you know how your lady mother became a knight?”

Catelyn settled comfortably in his lap and didn't seem to make much of it. Nobody's mother was a knight, to her knowledge; but nobody's mother held the land title either.

“The truest knight to ever wield a sword, aye, dubbed by the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard himself.” Sandor added.

“Is it true, mother?” Her eyes went wide. Even Ser Hyle, their master at arms, had seen him only from afar. “The Kingsguard are the best knights of all, and their Lord Commander the bestest of the best!”

Brienne blushed, yet retorted. “As to that, your father was knighted by a real Prince. That's a tale too.”

Sandor looked daggers at her.

“Why don't you let anybody call you Ser, father?” Catelyn asked him.

“That's not true. Your mother calls me so... At times.” Brienne turned so purple a beetroot would look pale. “Now listen, pup. She is the only one allowed to use it, because I treasure it as a very special name, and we want to keep our little secret to ourselves, can you understand?”

Catelyn nodded drowsily, and was fast asleep on her father broad shoulders.

“That's a long story indeed, best left to another time.”

Sooner than later; after apologising as demanded of him, Sandor had a good mind to hire the wretch: “The Maid and the Rose” had indeed a lovely ring to it, and we would see how well her Ladyship could keep her composure. Were Rhaegar Targaryen to come back from the dead and crown her Queen of Beauty with a wreath of Winter roses matching her _sapphirine_ eyes, his wife would trash even the princely arse to the dirt.

 


	2. Florian and Joinquil

“Must have some wine.” Sandor croaked as he reached for the jug; his mouth felt like ashes. After a lustful swig he remembered his manners, wiped his muzzle and turned. “Want some? The Dornish can be counted upon for a strong red at hand, when one most needs it.”

Tucked into the sheets up to her nose, the bride shook her head. A wonder the bed was not afire yet: the deep flush on the swath of bare skin set off her eyes, wide and bluer than ever, nailed on the wall high above him.

“How did you fare?” He asked, softly as he could manage.

No matter her fiery blush, she had taken it like a man. “Beddings are beddings, it's known, and Dornishmen are...”

He waited for her to find her tongue and nodded. “Dornish, aye.”

“My fault.” She uttered at long last. “No matter how mocking their praise, I shouldn't have snapped back I looked ridiculous _in_ that gown.”

“You didn't: blue is your colour, and the thing you wore was...” Sandor hawked; he'd better tread lightly, Brienne did not take well to fawning. “Nice on you, as long as it lasted.”

Not much, once the rabid mayhem set off in earnest; the Dornish buzzed about her as bees round a honeypot, likened the paths drawn by freckles on her fair skin to a map leading to hidden treasures – treasures they had no business calling for the hunt to begin with. Sandor was beginning to share their uncanny curiosity.

“Hope you didn't begin on your own, did you? The damn affair took a while.”

He had never enjoyed the pressing attentions of so many noblewomen but a man who sported out in the open a mug like his own didn't bitch about being showed around in his nameday suit, when the balmy night sooner called for a trickle of sweat than for goosebumps; or shouldn't have, if only the ladies of House Martell, actually Sands apart from a pint-sized Princess, had kept their hands to themselves and their torches where they belonged. He hated nothing more than the smell of singed hairs.

He sagged on the bed. “Close enough to a walk of shame through the Winding Walls.”

Brienne pushed herself onto an arm. “Do you regret letting the lady Arya talk you into this?”

On the journey to Dorne she had turned out a buff of the Warrior Princess Nymeria, had lectured them on her feats on both sides of the Narrow Sea, on Rhoynish customs, and the subtilities of Rhoynar law. Sandor had jumped on the chance offered: he was loathe to pass on his House cursed name but marrying in Dorne Dornish rules applied, and the heir to Tarth would keep and hand down hers. He had even picked Arya as his best man: the maid of honour attire ill-suited her, and she had threatened to strangle with the same bolt anyone trying to dress her in Myrish lace. As to him, Sandor counted no friends, and would sooner have the wolf-bitch than a Dornish goat-fucker.

“Should have left her to mould away in Braavos mudflats, if you ask.” He grouched.

To add insult to injury, a starry-eyed or rather sun-stroked Sansa wilfully mistook them for Florian and Jonquil, and had cajoled from Prince Doran, a considered man who should have known better but wouldn't refuse his late brother's wife, a _grand_ ceremony, that is a full-fledged Dornish madness in all its glory, and here they were.

“Aye, the Dornish are Dornish, and not bloody likely to forget I was born a Clegane.” Sandor gave a shrug. “At least the children won't. Long live Tarth!” He toasted and put down the ewer. “Speaking of your heirs, time we get busy on one.”

He fisted the sheet-cuff, but Brienne held on to the bed linens and to her shyness.

“I am your husband, and likely the one man in Sunspear who has yet to see you naked. I heard the enthused cheers you stirred, yet I am not one to trust hearsay only.”

“You put too much stock in their drunken blabbers.”

Sandor knitted his brow in disbelief. “By my own reckoning, the Dornish do hold their wine."

“Words are wind. Trust a mirror, not the lies of men, I was told, to know about your looks.” Brienne shot a sullen glance at the ceiling millwork. “Mirrors don't lie.”

Nor did they know when to keep to themselves their uncalled-for opinion: in their stately appointed quarter one of such implements hung accusingly and cunningly slanted. He had seen once something of the kind, albeit not so imposing nor lavishly ornamented, in a top-notch brothel and soon turned down what the madam boasted as her best room.

He needed not ask a mirror when he could read how he looked on people's faces.

“Come off it, Brienne: no one called me pretty either.”

“You are quite...” She swallowed. “Well built, Ser.”

Sandor glowered at her and gauged the pitcher; for a surety, there was a telling shine to her gaze. How much sour had she chugged, while waiting? He was the bloody Hound, not a fair sight. Yet, once one got used to his face, not that _he_ had managed, there was nothing wrong with the rest, he guessed; for all the gash across his tight had healed unsightly and jagged, hard muscles and a few scars were a given for anyone in his line of trade. Those who had met his blade and lived on sported worse.

He snorted: the Seven Hells with Brienne and her taste for handsome men. “Much as you, I take: two arms, two legs...”

How nonsensical, how ludicrous, how off-kilter: he got the long end of the deal. However plain a freckled face was nothing compared to his, and in Dorne, to her vast annoyance, even Sansa Stark had put together a ripe crop of freckles and was considered _more_ stunning for that. The strictest censors would not find fault in Brienne's eyes; as to her crooked teeth, was she a mare to have her mouth checked? Truth be told, he found the lopsided way she worried her lower lip quite endearing.

Sandor sucked in a breath: most absurd of all, he couldn't help finding the newfangled absurdity properly sizzling.

From the wall, the mirror was mocking them, prying and judgmental.

He considered a neat smash as the quickest to shut up unwelcome onlookers, reconsidered where the shards would fall, and yanked the sheet for a slapdash drapery. “That's better.” He tossed it on the frame, and caught sight of Brienne, lying on an elbow and gloriously splayed in her freckly, long-legged, big-boned, glowing expanse.

Bugger with all the mirrors in the world. He turned to her.

“Trust me, not a slab of glass.”

Better let go of any pretence to modesty: she had not cowered before the wreck of his face, and he trusted her not to flinch at the sight of his half-jutting manhood.


End file.
